The conquests of AEthelfrith left him without a rival in military power, and he turned from victories over the Welsh, as their English foes called the Britons, to the building up of a lordship over his own countrymen.
[Sidenote: Eadwine] The power of AEthelberht seems to have declined with old age, and though the Essex men still owned his supremacy, the English tribes of Mid-Britain shook it off.

So strong however had the instinct of union now become, that we hear nothing of any return to their old isolation.
Mercians and Southumbrians, Middle-English and South-English now owned the lordship of the East-English King Raedwald.

The shelter given by Raedwald to AElla's son Eadwine served as a pretext for a Northumbrian attack.

Fortune however deserted AEthelfrith, and a snatch of northern song still tells of the day when the river Idle by Retford saw his defeat and fall.

But the greatness of Northumbria survived its king.